Thank Goodness for the Diaper Sprayer!

There are those brave mamma's out there that cloth diaper without the wonderful invention, the diaper sprayer, but I'm here to tell you ~ I AM NOT ONE OF THEM! I use mine regularly! As a matter of fact, I made sure Uncle Russell had installed the diaper sprayer on the toilet before the cradle was even put up! I don't really think I could dunk diapers in the toilet and then wring them out with my hands, knowing that poopy water was all over them. Yuck! And if I wasn't thankful before her new medicine took effect, I really am thankful now! The prevacid that she is on is causing her stools to be very watery, greenish gray & quite smelly! So just a quick rinse with the diaper sprayer and toss the diaper and insert in the diaper pail! I love it!

Happy 4th of July America!

Ken and the boys, Marissa, Abigail & I went to the Dunedin Hometown USA baseball game, concert and fireworks in Dunedin on the 3rd. We had a great time! Jen and Joe and their gang & Stacy and Bryce joined us for the fireworks as well. The fireworks was one of the best I'd seen in a long time. Awesome family time!





Press "play" to see Abigail with her sparklers!

Pediatric Gastroenterologist

Last Tuesday was our visit to the pediatric GI doctor. She came recommended from our regular pediatrician, sees patients in West Pasco County and is on her insurance, so I made the appointment and off we went, finally hoping to get some answers. Answers that seem to elude us with her regular pediatrician, despite changing from breast milk to 4 different formulas. The office seemed eerie, I guess because it was at a Pediatric Surgery Center, so it seemed a bit drastic of a move to me. GI doctor to SURGERY... hmmm... maybe I'm over thinking this a bit. But in we went. My grandmother came with me, so she could hear from the horse's mouth what the doctor thought. I also felt if she had anything else to add - she could tell it to the Dr., instead of giving it to me when I got home!

Anyway, on the counter inside the exam room was an occult stool sample collection kit with gloves and KY Jelly. Odd, I thought, is this the "PAP smear kit" for kids with belly problems? Yikes! Teaching them young to look out for those tubes of KY! However, we wouldn't be needing that for this visit, thankfully. The exam was thorough and we had an opportunity to ask questions and she explained a lot of things to us. It basically boiled down to this - Amelia is allergic/reactive to the proteins in her formula. No matter where she gets it from: mom, cow's milk or soy, she is going to react to it. She may or may not grow out of this problem, and we may have not seen the worst of it yet (great). She may or may not have a problem in digesting other foods later on, so stay away from foods that contain milk or soy proteins. Ever try that? That is HARD! Her fix for now is a hypoallergenic formula (Allimentum) that is super expensive. Thank goodness for WIC!  If she has problems with Allimentum, her next step is a prescription elemental formula that only has the most basic of proteins in the mix. However, most babies have to be tricked into drinking the stuff because it is nasty (her words, not mine).

She also has reflux, or GERD. This will definitely get worse before it gets better. This disease generally peaks between 4 months and 6 months, then for most babies, tends to slow up and by 2 or so, disappear all together. She is on prevacid for this, because most other acid meds use milk and or soy proteins for binding. See how hard this milk protein thing is? Anyway, the prevacid is going to take 7 to 10 days to work, and meanwhile you can take her off the Zantac because her dose really isn't high enough to do anything for her anyway, I was told.

We were also told that she will continue to spit up mucous, that is normal in GERD babies (Gram still doesn't buy into this one. She says in all her life she has never seen a baby spit up so much mucous and it be normal); she may vomit up to 20 times a day and as long as she still gains weight, it is ok; thicken her bottles with cereal or thickener to the consistency of honey or so to help slow up the vomiting; the prevacid should help control the pain of the acid, but won't really stop the acid altogether. If there is breakthrough pain - treat with regular strength Malox. The adult stuff, I ask? Yep - the adult stuff. We are now dosing 3 times plus daily with the Malox. I'm not so certain that the prevacid is working... And her poops can be any color from normal to greenish/grayish and can be slowed by using rice cereal, and softened by using oatmeal cereal. BTW - only use Beechnut or Earth's Best, because the rest use soy and milk proteins as fillers/binders. Uuuggghhh... this is a long road ahead...

Tummy Problems

My Mom Doesn't Want Your Advice!

I saw this onesie at Target the other day and HAD to have it! Since having my second child with "colic" issues, the advice about how to handle her still keeps coming! Even from complete strangers while standing in line at the grocery store! But I digress... After repeated visits to her pediatrician and Amelia was still spitting up what seemed to me an enormous amount of formula, continued crying bouts from stomach aches and uncontrolled constipation, I decided to do a lot more digging into the reflux issue.  I was convinced that Amelia was allergic, or at least intolerant, to milk. However I thought is was due to the lactose in milk. So I put her on soy formula. Her tummy issues continued, although not as bad, but her urine started smelling so very strong! Almost pure ammonia! She even peed actual urea nitrate crystals that we thought was blood in her urine. Also come to find out, soy proteins are even harder to digest than cow's milk proteins. Soy is also an abrasive for the bladder and ended up being part of our problem for urine smell.

Then Grandma took matters into her own hands and talked with a nutrition guru at a local health food store who convinced her (and sold her) rice milk and coconut water to soothe her gut and get her system cleared out. After a weekend of throwing up a lot of mucous (the health food lady said it was necessary to get "rid of the old") and going through a whole container of rice milk, I made an appointment with a pediatric gastroenterologist and picked up a container of goat's milk. Goat's milk is thought to be (according to well intentioned older ppl.) the best form of gentle milk for babies. I already knew from listening to my doctor that goat's milk does not provide all the necessary proteins, fats, etc. for babies to thrive, but at this point, I'm willing to try anything!

With God's help, we'll make it through to our GI appointment!